Page 6 of The Naga Princess's Soldier Mate

The camp was in a state of great excitement, and it made for the perfect cover to slip away unnoticed. Let them talk about fallen skyships and what sounded like many survivors. I did not care. No, that wasn’t true. A part of me was as curious as they were—it wanted to turn around, go back, and ask questions. Survivors? Of a skyship? It was unheard of. It had only happened once before, as far as I knew.

My mind instantly flashed to the human male in med bay, the male I’d left only moments ago. He was one of the survivors from the last incident, and that seemed just as miraculous. It felt like a dream, sitting at his side while he was awake, while he talked. Oh…the things he’d said. He thought I couldn’t understand him, but I could, and I had never been talked to the way he’d talked to me. Beautiful? Kind? Sexy? Gorgeous? Those were not words that I’d ever consider using to describe myself. I was a Naga female, first and foremost, and one covered in countless battle scars—scars that detailed a life filled with near-daily fights to keep my place on the food chain. How could he find me beautiful?

The scales along my spine shivered with unease and dread. I was about to step back into the very life I had been trying to escape. Elder Chen had made it clear that I had no choice but to face this head-on, or it could put the entire camp in danger. He would not allow me to stay if it risked the sanctity of the Sacred Shaman Training Grounds. I didn’t want to do this, but I also could not let my problems taint what the Shamans had built. They couldmove—relocate their camp at a moment’s notice—but if too many challengers came here, it could expose the secrets I had sworn to keep before being allowed inside the camp.

Drawing a deep, shuddering breath, I forced myself to cross the final distance between myself and Khawla’s last known location. He had said he’d remain until I was ready to assume my role as the new Queen of Thunder Rock. The way he had said it made me feel like assuming that mantle was my only choice, but I refused. I would not be like my mother, and I was done fighting. This was about telling everyone I wasn’t standing in their way—that they could challenge each other and leave me out of it. But I knew it wasn’t going to be that simple.

I never saw Khawla; his matte scales, a muddy dark blue that almost crossed into purple, gave him perfect camouflage beneath the dark purple foliage. As the Master Scout, it was no surprise he was good at hiding, but I always felt there was more to it than that. It was like he could turn invisible, like it was magic that made him disappear.

“Princess Sazzie,” he drawled, slithering out from behind the trunk of a tree that couldn’t possibly be big enough to conceal all of his bulk. His long, thick tail coiled in a sinuous, undulating motion as he blocked my path, his spear lowered horizontally across his body. He dipped into a bow, folding his body across the solid wooden staff of his preferred weapon. I had always thought Khawla was as deep and mysterious as a pool of water, hiding what he thought behind the irregular amethyst of his eyes. This male was cunning and clever, and he held his own agenda. I wasn’t sure what to think of him or his continued presence.

“Master Scout,” I responded, freezing in place, uncertain what to do with the deference he appeared to show. It had to be an act, because I could not fathom why this male would prefer me as Queen over any of the other females from the village. His own mate was a prime candidate herself; she had always won her challenges. It would not surprise me if she was here with the others to face me now. So I could not trust Khawla—not for a minute. I had to assume he would work to establish his mate as Queen.

“They arrived last night,” he said solemnly, shifting his spear to indicate the spiral of smoke rising from between the trees behind him. “Made camp at that clearing. Too close.” I did not ask him what he meant by ‘too close.’ It could mean a number of things, and I was too nervous to give it much thought. Too close to the Shaman Training Grounds? Did he know the secrets of the Shaman camp? I would not put it past this male to have been able to sneak up to the perimeter and see it all. But at the same time, Khawla tended to be a stickler for the rules; I did not think he would do such a thing.

“Thank you,” I murmured, my mouth going dry as bone as I moved around him to head where he’d pointed. The smokestack was an obvious beacon, and it would not surprise me if all the females who wished to challenge me had gathered there. They had probably fought among themselves to decide in what order each of them would be allowed to face me. Another shiver shook me, my scales whispering as they rubbed together along my spine. I pretended not to see the surprised look in Khawla’s eyes as he followed me to the camp.

When I got there, I had to agree with his ‘too close’ assessment. They had set up on a hillside, which permitted them a viewover the woods, possibly allowing them to see all the way to the clearing where the Shaman camp was located. This came too close to allowing females not yet Queen to discover the truth the Shamans hid—the history they kept alive by living inside the skyship relics, by flying them, and by using them as easily as breathing. My stomach clenched painfully in my belly; that was my fault. I should have left as Khawla had suggested, taken these challenges elsewhere. Too late now.

After my mother had died, I’d received her key to the camp from Chen, and it burned against my chest now. A simple little disk of silver on a string, always hidden by the many gold- and jewel-encrusted necklaces my mother wore. I wore no adornments and, thus, did not benefit from the jewelry’s protective effects. The disk was plain to see for anyone who cared to look. Pausing just before I would be visible from the clearing, I pulled the worn leather cord over my head and tucked the disk safely into a pouch at my hip. Better. Khawla stared—of course, he did—but he did not ask, and when I haughtily raised my chin, he quickly averted his eyes.

I slipped from beneath the trees into the clearing silently, my ears picking up the sounds of raised voices and the hiss and clash of an ongoing fight. It was exactly as I’d imagined—at least half a dozen Thunder Rock females, and they were deciding the challenge order by battling it out among themselves. Astrexa, always my biggest nemesis, had fallen steeply from grace, but I was not surprised she was here. Defeating the crown princess, the heir, would restore her reputation; she’d be extremely motivated and dangerous. It was clearly visible in the vicious way she fought with her opponent, Scraikee.

The pair fighting did not appear to notice my arrival, but the other four females definitely did. They fell silent, their ongoing argument abruptly ending as they focused their blue eyes on me. Their various shades of blue to bluish gray were as familiar as they were threatening. All my life, I’d been surrounded by Naga with shades of that color—like my father, my brothers, and, yes, my sisters and my Clan. There had never been another home, but seeing them made me feel so unsafe that I also knew I never wanted to go back.

The word “home” brought forth only one image in my head—a thoroughly distracting image, given the situation: Reid’s brown eyes and the memory of his marked, muscled chest as he lay on the medical nest. Only, thinking of him in a nest made my stomach heat with a sharp burst of arousal, unlike any I’d ever experienced before. What would it be like to curl up next to him? To press my head to his chest, hear his heartbeat, and feel the shelter of his arms around me?

Proving how bad a time it was to get distracted, the female in the lead struck at me—thankfully verbally—while I was daydreaming. “Ah, there she is! The new Queen. Done hiding, Sazzie?” She must have been the winner, the one who got to go first, because she charged down the hill toward me with an excited gleam in her eye. The last time we’d clashed, I’d come out on top, but it had been averyclose call.

“Evarah,” I said, forcing my voice to turn sharp and cold. I couldn’t show fear; if I did, it was over before it began. That gleam in her eye made me feel like she wasn’t going to back down from a fight, no matter what I said. “Not hiding. Mourning! That was my mother, if you recall. Or have you been so hungry for power that you forgot to grieve for your Queen?” Idrove that barb in as hard as I could, and it halted Evarah a few feet away from me. She hissed but dipped into an appropriate bow and tapped her arms with her claws in a sign of respect and mourning.

“Shame on all of you!” I said, raising myself a little taller. I opened my arms out at my sides. “None of you are wearing mourning sashes or colors. None of you shed your adornments in respect for the Queen’s passing! Are you all so hungry for the throne that you forgot how to pay your respects?” A hush settled over the females; even the pair fighting slowed down to stare at me. That silence was only interrupted by a flock of birds taking off behind me, cawing loudly as they fluttered into the sky in a panicked disarray that quickly fell into formation.

One female in the back raised her hands to her neck as if she were going to shed her strands of gold on the spot; the others were frozen in place. Evarah curled her lip first, but it was Astrexa—always my biggest opponent—who actually hissed in anger. She did not speak up, though; she knew her place in the recently determined pecking order, and it wasn’t at the top. I took at least a little satisfaction from that, but it could not outweigh the dread that filled me. This was going to be a fight no matter what I said. I hated it.

“I am not done mourning,” I said, and I swept my hand over my bare chest, covered only by a plain leather bandeau. I’d shed all the shiny gold things I’d worn as much as armor as because I liked them. Doing so had made me feel lighter, more myself than I had in years. It had nothing to do with mourning the death of the mother I hated and had killed myself. But it was the custom to forgo adornments for at least a week after the death of a Queen; none of them had done so.

“And I will not be ascending the throne. You lot can fight for the title. I am done, and I am leaving Thunder Rock.” My declaration seemed to evoke silence—not just from the eager, fight-ready females, but from the woods around me. A silence that felt deadly, ominous. Turning my back on Evarah was a dangerous risk, but it was the only move I could make to drive home my point: dismiss them, leave, and never look back.

It was hard to suppress the instinct to twitch my scales with unease, and harder still to keep moving when I had exposed myself so thoroughly to the most dangerous challenger of them all. With a shriek of outrage, Evarah charged after me. She was younger than some of the others: hot-tempered and very strong. She was only a handful of summers younger than I and very eager to prove herself. As she flung herself into my path, she had enough grace not to attack my exposed back, but she had her claws out, and her fangs gleamed with a hint of venom. “No! We must defeat you for our claims to be legitimate! You cannot escape this, coward!”

It was a dizzying reminder of the past, of a fight I’d tried to avoid long ago. It hadn’t worked then, and, like I’d already known, it wouldn’t work now. “Coward?” I said, hissing through my teeth in what was supposed to be mockery but really masked my fear. They were going to kill me; Evarah was going to kill me for this. She wasinsultedthat I refused her challenge. “No, just disinterested. Go on, fight Astrexa or Scraikee; they want it. Not me, I’m not the Queen, I will never be the Queen. Now get out of my way!” I slashed my claws at her belly, catching her by surprise, and the scent of her blood curled into the air.

Her attempt to dodge had come too late, but she followed through on the motion anyway, coiling aside. I took fulladvantage, rushing past her to escape, my heart pounding in my chest and fear coating my tongue with a bitter taste. Evarah was not the only one who roared with anger, and, as I passed Khawla, I could see his expression shift from confusion to worry. So he cared, at least a little. And now he was going to be the witness to my demise.

I felt the brush of air against my back as Evarah came after me, and then the world turned on its head. Something struck me on the shoulder with enough force to send me tumbling to the ground and rolling across the moss. I came up ready for a fight, my claws out in front of my chest, but then floundered at the sight that met my eyes.

Evarah was on her back, pinned to the ground, and a figure towered over her. It took me a long moment to figure out what I was seeing, because I had never seen him standing upright before: Reid, with the heel of his bare foot pinning Evarah’s sharp chin horn against her vulnerable neck. He stood over her, arms out at his sides, muscles straining along his back, chest heaving, and his black hair a wild, tumbled mess. “Stayawayfromher!” he roared, his words slurring together, undecipherable but crystal-clear nonetheless. I knew their meaning without touching him.

He looked like the brightest, strongest, most wonderful being I’d ever seen. So strong, so wild, and here to protect me. ME. Tears welled up, which I fought to squash, but my chest felt tight and warm, struggling to come to terms with what I was seeing. Then horror followed. No, Reid was sick; he couldn’t be here! Once Evarah twisted from that chokehold, she was going to kill him! He was a big male for a human, his arms roped with muscle,his abdomen ridged, his pectorals thick slabs. But how could he possibly stand against half a dozen enraged Naga females?

Evarah howled in outrage beneath his foot, her claws curling around his ankle and digging into his skin. I saw how blood welled at several points, running in rivulets down his tanned skin. She was bucking and straining, her arms bulging as she tried to wrest him off her, but he wasn’t moving. It didn’t even look like he’d noticed the bite of her claws or the way she tried to twist his leg. Was there power in those appendages I did not know about? Was it that different from a tail?

Reid planted his fists on his hips, accentuating the narrowness of his waist compared to his massive shoulders. He spoke, but nobody could understand what he was saying. His words resounded in a dark, booming voice that sent a tingle through my body in all the right places. That was power—the way he spoke—and it was intimidating. The handful of Naga females gathered in the clearing stared at him, motionless, and I realized they were uncertain how to proceed. Khawla had been joined by two more Thunder Rock males, who watched the scene unfold from beneath the trees but did not interfere.

Rising, I smoothed my hands over my hips and straightened my belt of pouches. I didn’t want to approach the pinned Evarah, certain that, if I got too close, she’d try to strike at me rather than Reid, which was surprisingly ineffective. The temptation to slip the tip of my tail against Reid’s skin so I could understand what he said was too great. Staying out of Evarah’s range was impossible; her tail was as long as mine, but her claws were the real danger. She did not pay me any attention when I stayed far behind Reid and only used my tail to make contact with the edgeof his foot, the one planted solidly on the moss next to Evarah’s shoulder.

“There are going to be no challenges,” Reid said loudly, his head swiveling around the clearing so he could pin each of the other Naga females with a dark-eyed glare. “Not unless you want to go through me first,” he warned. “I’d like that very much. I’ve been itching for a good fight. Try me; I fucking dare you.” He was crazy. That was the only explanation. He might have caught Evarah by surprise, but the others weren’t going to be as easy to defeat.

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